Day 47 "Bank robbers and other bees"

Day forty seven, Bank Robbers and other Bees. Life behind the police lines in Lockdown Spain for a British couple and their three good legs cat.  

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Day 47 Bank robbers and other bees

It is day 47 of our Spanish Lockdown and the wind has dropped, the sun has come out and the world looks a better place. And you find me outside.

Tomorrow we are allowed out to exercise, of course there is an awful lot of complex times and where and when you can go, how old you are as to when you go and there many tables to pour over to make sure you don’t end up with a fine from the Guardia.

Municipalities under thousand can go out when they want.  Poor old La Herradura, a small holiday resort that was under 5 thousand on the electoral role has found it number increase this year thanks to the thing that must never be named, so they now have 5,134 residents, in theory – living there. So they have to abide by the times set out by the government.

Our niece Facetimed this afternoon, she was surprised that we hadn’t even been let out to exercise from the start.  Britain lockdown is a much looser affair, with large shops already opening like BandQ.  Our own chain of DIY store - Leroy Merlin – still has it’s door firmly shut.

I am sitting here in the relative peace of the lower terrace, probably the first time I have been able to sit down here since early February.  The birds are singing and there is a buzz of bees below helping themselves to the nectar from the wild flowers that are growing in abundance thanks to the wet weather.

 

It was a warm sunny day like this when we went to take a look at a new development of luxury flats in the small coastal town of Castell de Ferro. I think the word luxury gets very overused, you can get luxury chocolate, luxury bath salts and of course luxury travel.. well you used to able to.

 

The flats appeared to be quite well built, the one we had decided to invest in was somewhat narrow, had the oddness of the master bedroom having an onsuite that was also the only bathroom in the flat.

 

The Spanish love quite narrow small rooms, I guess that the British obsession with getting as much natural light into the place, just doesn’t matter as the purpose of going inside is usually to escape the sun and the heat.  You often see on those places in the sun shows, Brits moaning about how gloomy it is inside.

So we couldn’t loose buying into this development, people were making fistfuls of cash, flipping properties within a few months of buying them.

So it seemed a sound investment.  Spain was on the up, there seemed to be a building crane at every corner.  The sun was shining, and every night was fiesta night.

 

I guess with foresight, that Utopia had to come to a crashing end.  And crash it did, with the financial crisis, Spain, pretty much fell into the Mediterranean Sea.  The crisis unearthed all sorts of dubious land deals, even our block of flats was very near to an ancient fort, indeed the house they planned involved removing ancient pine forest growing up the side of the fort, already land had been cleared and the first flats built mostly with views of somebody’s rendered wall.

 

Worse the Spanish banks had been giving mortgages out to anybody that happened to be passing by the door.  Even our bank in the UK were, let us say, laissez faire.  We presented ourselves to the British bank and told them we wanted to borrow fifty thousand pounds.

 

We were expecting, forgive me, the Spanish Inquisition, what we got was a cup of hot tea, they took a quick look at our bank account, there was some tapping of computer keys and then a ‘ding’ and we were told the money would be in the account in a couple of days.

 

I don’t know why we didn’t hear the alarm bells ringing from that moment on, but my tea had even gone cold and we had enough money to put the deposits required down on the flat in the sun.

 

So the 2008 crisis struck Spain and the building companies went down like dominoes, the banks were left with bad debt and hundreds and thousands of half built flats and houses, a handful of ghost towns and even a ghost airport.  It was a mess, a disaster for the Spanish.

 

But never mind we have a bank guarantee, so we can ask for our deposit back.  They told us, “Er we have already spent your money so you can’t have it back”. We said “But we have a guarantee, that is against the law to do that!”

 

They said “Yes it is, and you are most welcome to sue us.”  As I have mentioned the legal process in Spain is slow.. very slow, like maybe ten years and very expensive, and you do not get your costs back, so you could end up seriously out of pocket, even if you have right on your side.

 

So the banks got away with it, as they often do and probably will do again when we are finally out of Lockdown.

 

That reminds me tomorrow we can both leave the casa, together, go for a brisk walk .. not too far and at the appointed time for our age group and health situation. So here’s to a change of scenery and a breath of proper fresh air.